DougT
Western Thunderer
After much thought and consideration following some positive comments by @Dan Randall, @Joe's Garage and @jamest I’m going to dip my toe in the world of layout threads.
Imagine if you will, in some distant alternative universe very closely alike our own, that the following had occurred;
So this is my combined layout build and workbench thread that I hope to keep updating reasonably regularly as the mojo comes and goes and as progress is made towards that perpetual goal of finishing a layout. Oh, and because one of my core characteristics is to never ever do anything the easy way, it’s Scale 7 (you can blame @S7BcSR for that, I do.)
This was actually a pre-lockdown endeavour, started a few months beforehand but with the baseboards and track concept mainly completed by early 2021. Initially it was to be a diorama but after some reworking of Ikea furniture I was able to generate the space to add a fiddle yard.
As can be seen many were the half-finished Parkside and Slaters wagons adorning the bare baseboards being marshalled in an attempt to develop the track concept. Initially the idea was to have the single lead and two dead-end sidings, but on changing the fiddle yard concept it gave the opportunity to re-arrange the bridge and provide a single track leading away down to the many and varied businesses that sprang up in the area.
Once the trackwork had been purchased and built, and a start made on the single car platform/station there was a short hiatus in proceedings for about 2 years as a result of my Mojo up and leaving in quite a spectacular way and it is only in the last few months that things have got moving again. I’d very half heartedly collected things for the layout in that period, mainly rolling stock, which I’m glad I did as it gives me more to go at now and more impetus to keep at it.
For a layout set in the late 70’s to mid 80’s (you can probably see there’s been a shift in the era towards one I can just about remember) there are a few interlopers to be seen, but nothing that renumbering, repaint or weathering can’t sort out!
So there it is, the aim is to update it moderately regularly as layout and rolling stock are built and hopefully, to exploit the hive mind of this august forum to solve problems when they occur which assuredly they will.
Imagine if you will, in some distant alternative universe very closely alike our own, that the following had occurred;
- The Ambergate Yard branch of the Ambergate, Nottingham and Boston and Eastern Junction Railway had flourished upon opening…
- That a large rail connected network of factories and depots had grown up in the Earlsfield area of Grantham…
- That the area had grown through the middle part of the 20th century to the extent that by the early 1980’s it had sufficient traffic to become a part of the Speedlink wagon network of British Rail…
- That instead of closing in 1852 after an illustrious two years, Grantham Ambergate Yard station had stayed open and eventually been renamed Dysart Lane (or maybe Grantham Old Wharf…tbc) in order to avoid confusion with its Derbyshire namesake…
- That BR, in its infinite wisdom and somewhat ahead of its time, had opened in Grantham a national supply centre for ancillary stores (stationary, uniforms, green and red pens, bowler hats, form 1s etc) that despatched regular trains to each of the regions (maybe even the Western, after begrudgingly having tried to go its own way and ending up down a technological backwater)…
- That during the opening phase of Doncaster PSB re-signalling, the branch had been re-signalled as a fringe to the PSB…
- And that by some strange quirk of fate the whole thing was capable of being modelled at 7mm to the foot in an area only 9ft6in by 2ft…
So this is my combined layout build and workbench thread that I hope to keep updating reasonably regularly as the mojo comes and goes and as progress is made towards that perpetual goal of finishing a layout. Oh, and because one of my core characteristics is to never ever do anything the easy way, it’s Scale 7 (you can blame @S7BcSR for that, I do.)
This was actually a pre-lockdown endeavour, started a few months beforehand but with the baseboards and track concept mainly completed by early 2021. Initially it was to be a diorama but after some reworking of Ikea furniture I was able to generate the space to add a fiddle yard.
As can be seen many were the half-finished Parkside and Slaters wagons adorning the bare baseboards being marshalled in an attempt to develop the track concept. Initially the idea was to have the single lead and two dead-end sidings, but on changing the fiddle yard concept it gave the opportunity to re-arrange the bridge and provide a single track leading away down to the many and varied businesses that sprang up in the area.
Once the trackwork had been purchased and built, and a start made on the single car platform/station there was a short hiatus in proceedings for about 2 years as a result of my Mojo up and leaving in quite a spectacular way and it is only in the last few months that things have got moving again. I’d very half heartedly collected things for the layout in that period, mainly rolling stock, which I’m glad I did as it gives me more to go at now and more impetus to keep at it.
For a layout set in the late 70’s to mid 80’s (you can probably see there’s been a shift in the era towards one I can just about remember) there are a few interlopers to be seen, but nothing that renumbering, repaint or weathering can’t sort out!
So there it is, the aim is to update it moderately regularly as layout and rolling stock are built and hopefully, to exploit the hive mind of this august forum to solve problems when they occur which assuredly they will.
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